Tana Delta Irrigation Project, Kenya: An Environmental Assessment

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Rehabilitation of the Tana Delta Irrigation Project, Kenya: An Environmental Assessment. • The underlying viability of community livelihoods has been most significantly and adversely impacted by the discontinuation of seasonal flooding by the Tana River, due to its change of course in 1994, shortly before the advent of the TDIP. • Water currently remains the greatest single constraint to crop production – and by extension, food and livelihood security. • Communities are cultivating all available productive land which, in the absence of either irrigation and/or capital to intensify per acre productivity, has resulted in a fixed upper limit to household and community food production, characterised by low levels of productivity directly related to erratic rainfall levels. Most significantly, this upper limit is typically lower than food needs. • Conversion of critical grazing lands combined with increased competition for grazing continues to compromise local Orma livelihoods. • The nearby forest patches are important for daily needs (particularly firewood and building material). In addition, they play a role as the most important source of coping mechanisms during regularly encountered periods of stress. • The TDIP represented to villages a significant development opportunity that would compensate for the adverse impact of the shift in river course. • The matrix of multiple underlying development challenges associated with subsistence farming results in a lack of community capacity to accumulate needed capital, in order to precipitate investment into strategies that break the cycle of poverty. • These underlying challenges are exacerbated by insecurity of land tenure; banditry; and loss of primary resource - land - to TDIP. • It is interesting to note that if villages farmers were allowed to cultivate rice on their traditional land within the (improved) TDIP project area, selling to TDIP – as has been suggested in the past, and indeed expected by villages at the project’s inception (see Section 5.3.2) - the rehabilitation of the TDIP, directly and indirectly, has the potential to contribute positively towards diminishing all four basic causes of local poverty, that is: lack of cultivable land; low per-acre productivity; lack of infrastructure to access markets; and insecurity of land tenure as well as property. B. The forest resource • Communities acknowledge the importance of the forest patches to their livelihoods, particularly in terms of (a) microclimate and (b) coping strategies. • Results show high incidence of firewood, building sticks, medicinal plants and weaving material use, in addition to traditional beds and sticks for farming. • The ‘high importance’ products are identified as firewood; other tree products (e.g. poles, sticks, charcoal); medicinal plants and handicraft materials. • A significant proportion of households surveyed agreed that household demand for these uses is increasing over time; whilst demand at a community level was perceived as even greater. • Fewer households agree that the availability of ‘high importance’ products is decreasing. However, this is somewhat at odds with the findings from the village focal (both elder and youth) group discussions, which were unanimous in agreement that forest resources are dwindling, that the current use levels are unsustainable, and that the continued existence of the forest patches is threatened • The greatest costs are crop loss and associated time loss guarding against loss, followed by danger to human life. The majority of those households surveyed believe that crop and time loss are growing. • Communities acknowledge the current unsustainable decline of forest patches. • A section of the communities acknowledge the danger of imminent disappearance of the resource. • Communities expressed a desire for the forests to be conserved, and even expanded. • Communities perceive the most important causes of forest decline to be (a) increasing internal demand (b) lack of seasonal flooding (c) poor enforcement and (d) fire. • Communities perceive the most effective solutions for sustainable forest management to be (a) devolution of forest authority and management to village level, accompanied by (b) official issuance of titles of traditional village lands (c) technical assistance and awareness creation on best-practice and (d) forestation/reforestation. • Two villages, Bfumbwe and Wema, contain functional environmental committees containing youth, active in forest management as well as other conservation actions. The 25
Rehabilitation of the Tana Delta Irrigation Project, Kenya: An Environmental Assessment. other villages contain functional elder, women and youth institutions, active in various development activities, but not as yet representing functional, active environmental management capacity. C. Institutional linkages • The attitude of villages towards TARDA is extremely negative, based on tangible losses to livelihoods; perceived unfulfilled agreements on the part of TARDA; and the arrogant attitude of TARDA as experienced by communities, whereby communities are not even informed of TARDA plans and/or decisions, let alone consulted. • Any attempt on TARDA’s part to engage in partnership with the community will likely not succeed, due to the community’s distrust of TARDA. • Short-tern advancement of the relationship between TARDA and the community will, out of necessity, need to be based on TARDA’s willingness to provide villages with tangible benefits, under community control. • A necessary pre-requisite to the long-term advancement of the relationship between TARDA and the community is the engagement of the community by TARDA as equal partners • Villages lack strong positive links with external institutions, with only occasional and lowlevel assistance from development NGOs. • Internal institutions play the most significant role in community development. Whilst active and motivated, their effectiveness, however, is hampered by lack of resources. • Positive engagement and/or assistance from government agencies is, essentially, nonexistent. RECOMMENDATIONS The following is recommended with respect to the proposed rehabilitation of the TDIP, assuming that the rehabilitation contains the twin objectives of environmental and social sustainability: 1. The proposed rehabilitation should take account of, and attempt to redress, the TDIP communities’ state of poverty, vulnerability and lack of development options. The TDIP holds significant potential to contribute to resolving a significant number of the underlying conditions that maintain villages in a cycle of poverty. Specifically: 1. Engage the communities as development partners, through shared consultation, information, planning and implementation. 2. Consider delivering on the original expectation that communities would be able to cultivate rice within those traditional lands that fall within the TDIP, and sell to the TDIP at fair prices. 3. Continue providing employment opportunities, with payment executed in a timely manner. 4. Consider the feasibility of assisting communities with periodic water supply for crops. 2. That efforts be made to conserve the forests by piloting participatory or community forest management (PFM/CFM), given the importance of the forests to community livelihoods; their historical management by communities; and their threatened existence. Specifically: A. To conduct a detailed forest utilization study, in conjunction with the communities, on use levels, use types, and species involved within each forest patch, in order to identify preferred species, rates of use, and threat status of each. B. To explore devolution (limited or otherwise) of authority over and management of forests to communities, preferably in conjunction with a co-management agent to provide enforcement and technical assistance, and oversight. C. Officially endorsed demarcation (by title or otherwise) of forest patches between villages based on traditional village boundaries. Special consideration needs to be given to accommodating Baandi village claims, suggested as the boundary separating Salama and Galili Locations. Consideration will also need to be given to any claims by other communities on the forests associated with the TDIP, to be addressed in an appropriate manner. 26
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Tana Delta Irrigation Project, Kenya: An Environmental Assessment

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